Monthly Archives: July 2011

Really, It’s Just KFC In general terms, this post is just a celebration of Neal Stephenson’s mastery with words and the fun he has with thunderous incongruities. I’m going to do that in two ways—both from The Diamond Age.[1] First, … Continue reading →

July 27, 2011. It is now less than a week until the United States of America tells the people who have loaned money to us that we were, after all, a bad risk. The debt limit confrontation has been pictured … Continue reading →

Today, I want to follow up the perspective on aging and dying that I called “rising above decline.” As I promised, I will be using a tennis tournament to point to the differences that strike me. But first, a word … Continue reading →

Today, I want to think about dying and about not dying. It’s pretty simple in a way, but I have quite a few posts I would like to write about getting old and about people who have written persuasively about … Continue reading →

I had been working with “posts” to my “blog” for a while before it occurred to me that a post I published on Saturday Evening was a Saturday Evening Post. You wouldn’t think it would have taken me that long, … Continue reading →

I own a lot of books and I own different ones for different reasons. I’m going to have to get rid of nearly all of them soon and I find myself stumbling over how different those reasons are from each … Continue reading →

We are a credit-driven society. We know all about debts. You see something you want to buy, you give the merchant your credit card (thereby acquiring a debt) and when, eventually, the bill comes, you pay it, thus discharging the … Continue reading →